Dosing Sugar to lower Nitrate

[Pinkfish]

I have been told that it is possible to lower Nitrate by dosing sugar.

Can anyone inlighten me on this please, what results do you get, how much sugar can you dose and how often, what are the side affects.

Mike

[jamieb]

its used as a form of carbon mate, this feeds the denitrifying (sp?) bacteria.
most people use vodka as it seems to give better results if its purer.
if i remember correctly its about 1ml-50l or somthing like that but if you google it you should fine a more definate answer.
as far as side affects you can get a bacteria bloom but if its just a smallish one it shouldn't cause any harm.
HTH
jamie

[MR Teee]

If it turns the water milky - you have dosed too much and caused a bloom. Be carefull as this will lower o2 levels to dangerously low levels. If your skimmer is not upto the job it could cause trouble for the critters relying on the o2 in your tank.

As always reef central has a huge thread on it but gets very detailed in the chemistry that is involved.

[Reefer]

2 sugars and milk in mine please

[SteveS]

ive been reading on the net today, seems a reef expert adds a spoonful of coffee to reduce po4...

whatever happened to good old reef husbandry?

steve

[Reefer]

Coffee? thats interesting, do they go standard or de-caff?

[SteveS]

it dont matter m8, as long as its fluidised :)

steve

[Reefer]

Yes that what I've heard. The best way to fluidise coffee is powdered milk, obviously. With 2 sugars in mine.
We will sort this one out Steve.

[SteveS]

yup give it a good mix with a wooden spoon and you'll be fine :D

steve

[Reefer]

Yup wooden spoon, the bigger the better I have heard.

[reefbloke]

Mixing Vinegar(carbon source) with Kalk if you use it will do the same thing whilst increasing the effectiveness of your Kalk solution.:)

[angel1]

2 sugars and milk in mine please


Shall i put the kettle on then?:D

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

I can't get into the politics of this, but I will avail you of the facts. Adding a carbon source to your aquarium was originally designed for people who had too lower Nitrate in their systems. Zero nitrates can cause the "algae" inside the corals to crash. A Chinese whisper might have influenced this new theory?

Ethanol for instance added should shock-load anaerobic areas like feeding a de-nitrifier. This causes the oxygen levels in your rock and substrate to drop. If done correctly for aquariums with too lower Nitrate, it encourages the putrification of anaerobic areas to produce ammonium, and Nitrate. Unfortunately sulphide is usually also produced to some degree. To observe a reduction in Nitrate when a carbon source is added is counter intuitive. Anearobic/putrified environments mostly produce nitrate and ammonium not allow bacteria to utilise nitrate as an energy source. A popular miss conception but it is very low oxygen that bacteria need to de-nitrify NOT zero (anaerobic) dissolved oxygen.

Either way if you have nitrate you might find that it puts it up rather than lowers it. If you have tried this and you have observed a lowering of nitrate it may not be linked to the addition of a carbon source. It may simply be that your nitrate was on the way down anyway. Possibly because all the positive changes that were made prior to adding a carbon source had finally started working.

Sorry to be a kill joy, but don't shoot the messenger! I have so many bullet holes in me now that I go off like the Trevy fountain when I drink! Seriously just trying to help LoL...............Chris

[Blue]

Thanks for that Chris, you are our very own mad scientist :D :D
seriously though thanks for that :)

[reefbloke]

I might be wrong here but i was under the impression that anaerobic bacteria used methanol/vodka/vinegar as an electron donor during respiration.The donor is then oxidized and carbon and energy then becomes available to the anaerobic bacteria for cell generation i.e increase numbers and pull nitrate down even further? The electron acceptor(NO3) is reduced during this process(electron transport chain).
As a result oxygen levels are depleted and levels can become dangerously low if the addition of Vodka etc is over dosed.
Just my thoughts,Tony

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

I might be wrong here but i was under the impression that anaerobic bacteria used methanol/vodka/vinegar as an electron donor during respiration.The donor is then oxidized and carbon and energy then becomes available to the anaerobic bacteria for cell generation i.e increase numbers and pull nitrate down even further? The electron acceptor(NO3) is reduced during this process(electron transport chain).
As a result oxygen levels are depleted and levels can become dangerously low if the addition of Vodka etc is over dosed.
Just my thoughts,Tony

There is a very fine line between denitirfication and putrefication. In an envirnomet that will efficiently denitrify without the production of sulphide ammonium and nitrate. In thisd type of environment dissolved oxygen will enter the environment and will be quickly used up. Therefore to all intesive purposes the environment is anearobic, but not putrified. One molecule of putrescene in anoxic environments can be converted to 20 molecules of ammonia. Yuo also get ANAMOX which stands for anoxic ammonia oxidation to nitrate. Also Nasty pathogens of corals and fish love this type of environment. Eg. Vibrio Spp.

THIS MIGHT HELP
Denitrifiers and Denitrification
All organisms need sources of nitrogen (N), carbon (C) and sulphur (S). These basic building blocks are essential to synthesise amino acids that are incorporated into the proteinaceous structures of or bodies, and all other life on the planet. The use of NO3-, sulphate (SO42-) or CO2 in this way is called assimilative metabolism. The use of NO3- in an assimilative process is known as assimilative denitrification (ad). Ad removes only a small amount of nitrogen from the environment, because the structural requirements of organisms are finite1.

The type of denitrification we try to encourage in our aquariums is dissimilative denitrification (dd). During dd sources of nitrogen such as NO3- are used to accept electrons and generate energy. The products of dd are released directly into the environment. Dd is able to biotransforms a huge amount of nitrogen from one form to another, but it is only performed by certain bacteria1.

The desired bacteria for the task of dd are facultative anaerobes. These microorganisms can live in the absence or presence of DO. True anaerobic bacteria perish when exposed to DO whereas obligate aerobes need DO to survive. Make no mistake it is not one pure strain of bacteria that performs dd. It is an extremely diverse mixed population with varying nutritional demands.

In natural substrates such as rock or in layers of sand, microenvironments exists in close proximity to one another that contain varying quantities of DO2. We must learn to think of the anaerobic and aerobic states as not clear-cut extremes where either oxygen is present or absent, but as range of DO values inclusive of just anaerobic and just aerobic. This zone should ensure that the denitrifier is inhabited by facultative anaerobes utilising NO3- in a dissimilative process.

In denitrifiers with an internal recirculation pump, DO should be at a somewhat uniform concentration throughout the unit. The feed from the aquarium that carries oxygenated water into the denitrifier must be quick enough to prevent complete stagnation, but slow enough to provide a microaerobic environment. It must be set to allow the unit to run in the zone.

Taken to the nth degree, the environment in which dd occurs must contain NO3- and no oxygen. This is because the expression of nitrate reductase the first enzyme involved in the chain of events to perform dd, is interupted when oxygen is present and NO3- is absent. Without nitrate reductase, all the other stages of dd can not occur1 (Fig 3.).

Nitrogenase enzyme is utilised by cyanobacteria to assimilate nitrogen from DN. Unlike nitrogenase which is inactivated by the presence of oxygen, the effect DO has on nitrate reductase is simply to interrupt its expression. Expression of a protein involves deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) transcription to messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), and the subsequent translation of mRNA into protein. Protein synthesis is a lengthy process but once synthesised, protein stability and activity is long lived. As I understand it, this would mean that if a bacterium is occasionally exposed to DO at low level, denitrification would not suddenly stop. Denitrification would cease only when DO is continuously elevated beyond a certain threshold, and only then when the activity of existing nitrate reductase is lost.

H2S Production
As mentioned above, bacteria perform dd to gain energy. Facultative anaerobes held in the zone are unlikely to acquire excessive stores of energy because dd will be partly compromised. If sulphate-reducing facultative anaerobes gain sufficient energy, they are able to use SO42- in a dissimilative process to produce H2S. The use of SO42- in this manner requires more energy than dd.

At the risk of appearing patronising H2S smells of rotten eggs. To members of the aquatics trade involved in fish husbandry this is a smell that we dread. If you can smell it and it originates from any part of your aquarium system, then immediately find the source and remove it!


NO3- nitrate NO2- nitrite NO nitric oxide
Nitrate reductase Nitrite reductase

N2O nitrous oxide N2 di-nitrogen or nitrogen gas
Nitric oxide reductase Nitrous oxide reductase

Fig 3. Enzymes and Products utilised in Dissimilative Denitrification


In the marine sector, the hobby has changed dramatically over the past decade. Market pressure has been placed on the manufactures of marine equipment to come up with innovative and affordable solutions to problems. The consumer has also demanded that this equipment be plug-and-play. With regard to denitrifiers, the above criteria simply can not be met.

[Macca]

I will read this and reply once I am more sober :confused:


James

[Tetley]

I will read this and reply once I am more sober :confused:


James

When you understand it, could you let me know please, cause its WAY above my head.

ATB

[Blue]

See what I mean :D :D

[reefbloke]

Very interesting Chris.
While we are on the subject do you feel that amino acids or the lack of essential amino acids could be a limiting factor regarding the number of anaerobic bacteria?
I'm not even sure that denitryfying bacteria require any essential amino acids or can synthesise all of the amino acids they require for DNA production?
With regards to Vodka etc do you feel it is of little use then Chris as I'm sure your aware its been used to great success to treat waste water high in nitrate within the water treatment industry.Granted its not quite the same as the living,breathing environment of a reef tank but the science is sound no?

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

When you understand it, could you let me know please, cause its WAY above my head.

ATB

Hope your celebrations when off well. I wouldn't like to be in your head this morning.

PS everyone it should be milk-sugar (lactose) not Tate and Lyle or silver spoon!


Chris

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

The post above was meant for James but hope you had a GOOD TIME TOO.

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

I Will summarise.

Think of three types of environments. Aerobic (easy), anaerobic (just zero oxygen and just having oxygen present) and putrefied anoxic (completely stagnant, nasty and smelly). The first 2 should be encouraged, the latter should not.

The final type of environment will create nitrate, ammonia and sulphide plus some other nasty bi products. The first can nitrify and the second can de nitrify.

Having a DSB, mud or plenum that goes beyond the depth at which the first 2 environments occur will not give you more de nitrification. It will cause the second environment to be bombarded by nitrate and ammonia and lots of other bad things from below. The nasties will also rise up through the "bed" and enter the water column.

Adding a carbon source to the aquarium encourages the production of the last type of environment. Strange but all true and can be read about in any first year BSc text book. It isn’t rock science!

Happy reading, dedication to the cause..............................

Chris

[MR Teee]

Makes sense that Chris, But consider if you will an aquarium with no sand - a traditional Berlin system.

Where would the last environment develop, if anywhere?

What would be the implication of adding sugar to such a system?

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

[QUOTE=MR Teee;17047]Makes sense that Chris, But consider if you will an aquarium with no sand - a traditional Berlin system.

Where would the last environment develop, if anywhere?

What would be the implication of adding sugar to such a system?[/QUOTE

It would develop deep in the heart of the rock in the absence of a carbon source. However, if you add a carbon source you can get the nasties developing close to the surface of the rock and releasing sulphide and other toxins into the water! NOT GREAT. If you use Ethanol you can also knock out the majority of nitrification so- sulphide, ammonium and nitrate plus phenols gush out of your rock and ammonia that the fish produce and nitrite stay in the water. It would all go terribly wrong. This is the extreme case but anything in between is quite bad.

If you have run a Berlin system with nitrate you have over done it with the fish.

Try reading this-
Fish Biomass and Nitrate Accumulation
Biomass relates to the mass of living tissue an organism has. One small fish is less biomass than a larger fish or many small fish. When assessing fish stocking density, we should consider biomass rather than “inches of fish”.
In aquarium systems without sumps, if the biomass of fish exceeds a certain threshold or the fish are overfed, nitrate levels will rise. If the hobbyist wishes to run at near natural levels of nitrate, Berlin systems can accommodate only a small biomass of fish. In comparison with living rock, deep substrates contain a larger volume of the correct type of environments able to cycle nitrogen. However, deep substrates housed in aquariums accumulate detritus which eventually leads to instability and a rise in “pollution”. To prevent deep substrates from accumulating detritus, use them in a sump and prefilter them efficiently. 200 Micron filter bags are ideal for this.



I have just got back from a gentleman’s house where I preformed a consultancy. He inherited a sump system with a non-prefiltered plenum. 7 years on and the prognosis is poor. Lucky he came to the right place and we will sort it without any losses. Had to apply 2kg of carbon and ozone to it today.

[MR Teee]

If you have run a Berlin system with nitrate you have over done it with the fish.

Chris, I have a 120 Gallaon tank with 5 fish,

3 inch yellow tang
4 inch + 2 inch Marroon Clowns
2 inch Coral Beaut
3 inch Lawnmower blenny

100Kg of nice Figian live rock in a nice open structure with around 45X in tank circulation.
Skimmer is a Deltec APF 600.

I have always struggled with Nitrate (50ppm). Feeding is not excessive cube of mysis every 3 days, formula 2 and new era flake once per day. Sheet of Nori every other day.

I'm stuck - any more ideas?

[MR Teee]

I guess what I am trying to acheive with the sugar dosing, is to feed the denitryfying bacteria inhabiting the rock, with a view to them multiplying.

I was then planning to stop the dosing of the sugar, and letting the (hopefully) increased numbers of bacteria consume the Nitrate and then die off once it is all gone.

The dead bacteria would be skimmed out and the nitrate level monitored for reoccurance.

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Very interesting Chris.
While we are on the subject do you feel that amino acids or the lack of essential amino acids could be a limiting factor regarding the number of anaerobic bacteria?
I'm not even sure that denitryfying bacteria require any essential amino acids or can synthesise all of the amino acids they require for DNA production?
With regards to Vodka etc do you feel it is of little use then Chris as I'm sure your aware its been used to great success to treat waste water high in nitrate within the water treatment industry.Granted its not quite the same as the living,breathing environment of a reef tank but the science is sound no?

Good question- as I remember the majority of bacterial amino acid production is from the Krebs cycle (Citric Acid Cycle)? For other readers- essential amino acids are those that must be taken in (endocytosed/ingested) because the Krebs Cycle is unable to produce them from available basic precursors. I suspect that even the simplest forms of organic matter contain masses of essential amino acids within proteins. I would imagine within even the most naive of aquariums this type of organic matter is in relative abundance- particularly within substrata. I must make clear that amino acids are used to build proteins, not DNA but I suspect this was a mistake on your part when you were writing the post. DNA is composed of a sugar phosphate backbone with purine a pyrimidine basses.

With regard to limiting factors for anaerobic bacteria- bacteria have fast life cycles and no proof reading for their DNA. This makes their "progeny" excellent adapters to what ever environment they happen to be in or enter. We are also taking about an extremely mix and diverse population. The progeny that can utilise nutrition from their environment will survive whilst the others will die out. All it takes in another mutant strain to be produced that can survive in the environment. In that respect I don't think in any circumstances that bacteria find any environment limiting with regard to growth. They are probably present on the Moon, Mars etc. If there are ions there that they can utilise such as nitrate they will use them.

In putrefied environments I understand that mostly amines are used a precursors to the production of ammonia and ultimately nitrate.

In anaerobic sludge reactors (on sewage farms) denitrification is preformed by Methanogens, members of the Archea bacteria that have been around since the dawn of time. I suspect that ethanol might be of use in such reactors, but if your aquarium is so full of organics and so anoxic, that methane is bubbling out of your substrate I don't think the fish will be swimming.

If I am missing the point please elaborate on the use of ethanol in anoxic reactors in industry. I wouldn't have thought it would have been cost effective. Ethanol is also produced naturally beneath the substrates in our aquariums along with pyruvate and it will be present naturally within anoxic sludge reactors. It probably isn't added or if it is, only to kick-start the reactions.

Ethanol is great for feeding denitrifiers but the operator I would suggest, should have in-depth knowledge of how these things work. I think this is beyond the scope of most hobbyists.

Cheers


Chris

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Chris, I have a 120 Gallaon tank with 5 fish,

3 inch yellow tang
4 inch + 2 inch Marroon Clowns
2 inch Coral Beaut
3 inch Lawnmower blenny

100Kg of nice Figian live rock in a nice open structure with around 45X in tank circulation.
Skimmer is a Deltec APF 600.

I have always struggled with Nitrate (50ppm). Feeding is not excessive cube of mysis every 3 days, formula 2 and new era flake once per day. Sheet of Nori every other day.

I'm stuck - any more ideas?
Don't worry about it if you are only keeping softies. 50 ppm will not bother the fish. Change 10% of the water weekly. Nitrate is far less harmful than sulphide.

Chris

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

I guess what I am trying to acheive with the sugar dosing, is to feed the denitryfying bacteria inhabiting the rock, with a view to them multiplying.

I was then planning to stop the dosing of the sugar, and letting the (hopefully) increased numbers of bacteria consume the Nitrate and then die off once it is all gone.

The dead bacteria would be skimmed out and the nitrate level monitored for reoccurance.

Please reed all I have written. Sulphide is far more harmful than nitrate.
Chris

[reefbloke]

Yes I'm am sorry i have simplified the matter somewhat,amino acids linked together in a certain order via peptide bonds to form proteins.DNA encodes the amino acids in the protein chain?At least thats the way i remember it Lil.
Obviously if an essential amino acid is missing certain proteins that maybe required cant be produced?

With regards to Ethanol used is the water treatment industry i from the papers i have read it was more effective than Methanol but prohibitively expensive so your quite right,sorry if i mislead if i mentioned Ethanol was used.
Thanks for your very complete response Chris.